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American Racer Tires


speed demon

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The American Racer tire had the worst showing ever at TMS. ROMCO has continued to stand behind this tire even though it is not even close to a suitable tire for the TMS race. This is the second race on this tire and the second time ROMCO has made the same mistake. For those of you that don't know ROMCO has a contract with Day Motorsports for the series' tires. They are an O.K. tire for the short track racing, but for our race at TMS they lack the research and development to make a tire that wears on a car that weighs approx. 2875. The tire used are a compound borrowed from the Busch North Series where the cars weigh a lot more. With the cars being lighter in the ROMCO series the tire doesn't wear like it should. It just blisters. When blistered you can still see the "titties" on the tire. The reason for the blistering is heat. When a tire builds up heat the only way for it to release it is to wear, and without wear, your right back to the blistering. In extreme yet very common occurrences over the past weekend several cars from the front of the pack to the rear of the pack had "chunks" or "patches" ( 6"x 10") of rubber just separating from the tire, on all four tires. This leaves two problems for racers. First, it causes debree on the track for cars to navigate through and get caught up in their grille. Two, you've got a racer that is fixing to cause, or be in an accident without any warning because of a soon to happen blow out. Some racers finished the 2004 race with no rubber on their tire and only cord (in the contact patch). The worst one I saw was worn down through 3 of the 4 layers of cord and with about 1-2 more laps they would have certainly been in the wall.

 

ROMCO officials have known about the problem at least before the 2003 race and has done nothing about it. They just shrug it off as people not complying to the rules Well I'm her t tell you that the tires I looked were from crews that were following the rules to a tee just like the tire specifications suggested.

 

ROMCO needs to step up to the plate and have another tire test before the next TMS race. Whether it be with another tire manufacturer like Goodyear or Hoosier, or with another compound by Day Motorsports. If they stick with the same compound it is certain that the blistering problem will only get worse with the cars running faster every race. I hate to say it but the worst may yet be seen.

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speed demon,

 

About 10 years ago (when I was Chief Steward at SAS), we conducted a side by side comparison tire test at the half-mile, high-banked asphalt track. It was clear then that the Hoosiers outperformed the McCrearys by a good deal in every category except tire wear. In addition, there was some evidence of early blistering in the McCrearys. The results of this tire test were published in Short Track Racing Magazine and were not challenged by either Goodyear or McCreary. As you know, American Racer took over the McCreary product.

 

That being said, the American Racer tires have been successfully utilized in a wide variety of racing applications from coast to coast and my intent here is not to critisize their tire, but mearly to point out that perhaps the Hoosiers might perform better in the high heat environments we face here in Texas.

 

Again, not being critical, just sharing information that is available to me.

 

Nick Holt

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To add to my previous post, Day Motorsports (A.K.A. American Racer) has no super speedway experience when you compare them to Hoosier and Goodyear.

 

At least 7 - 8 cars had problems with tires blistering and chunking.

 

The (00) Bumbera car wrecked in the 2003 race because of a tire. Tire chunked and caused him to hit the wall.

 

One of the (96) Davidson cars wrecked in a tire test for Day Motorsports before the 2003 race. Tire chunked and caused him to hit the wall.

 

Day Motorsports said the tire was improperly setup. They weren't. They were set up per the spec sheet they provided to ROMCO. Day Motorsports still sticks to thier guns and says this is the right tire for ROMCO.

 

ROMCO needs to get with Day Motorsports and have another tire test and rectify the situation before someone gets hurt. Or they can not use them for TMS and can run Hoosier/Goodyear because of an unsuitable compound.

 

The "word" is that some racers may choose to skip out on the next TMS race due to the tire situation with American Racer.

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Shocks alone wont cause a tire to come apart. As far as the shock being built by the same guy 3 of the cars I listed did their own shock building. On the compound statement, this was the same compund that they used at the races before. All of the cars I mentioned were from the front of the pack to the rear.

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YellowFlag,

I'm just posting about tires that are extremley dangerous. I have some pictures of tires from TMS that I will try and get posted this weekend. They come from diffrent teams that arent affiliated with each other. Reguardless of whos car they were on the price of a life is the same.

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yellowflag,

The first time 96 came by I told Marc(19) that it looked like a bandelero.

No insult intended...it just looked scaled down. When he got next to some of those downforce short track cars, their "trunklids" looked like they were 1.5X longer as well as wider to some lesser degree.

Jay

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didnt see the 96 car, but it was probably a straight up speedway body, which the deck lids are shorter and more narrow compared to a short track offset body, even the ABC body we put on Eddy's car has a shorter deck lid by about 4 inches compared the the body we ran last year.

 

 

As for as the tires the AM racers havent been much of a problem for us, but it does pose problem during practice with the different rubber, and before a ROMCO feature, when they run so many warm up laps to help lay down some of the am racer rubber before starting the race.

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Just curious, not trying to spin off into a suspension thread, or insinuate that set ups were off, because the pics show tires from all cornners of the cars, but could car set up have something to do with the wear, also could the amracers have had a bad batch of tires that some of the cars got?

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Did you guys start on stickers

 

ROMCO requires everyone to start the race on the tires that they qualified on. Everyones tires had some hot laps on them. Some more than others because they were trying to find some speed during the unique practice / qualifying time slot. You should be able to start on stickers without a problem. If the tire is so marginal that you cant get 30 laps out of it then there is a serious problem with that tire

 

Just curious, not trying to spin off into a suspension thread, or insinuate that set ups were off, because the pics show tires from all cornners of the cars, but could car set up have something to do with the wear, also could the amracers have had a bad batch of tires that some of the cars got?

 

Ive been keeping up with Texas racing and the racers for a long time. I can understand your concern about setup being off. There are a fair share of unexperieced drivers at TMS. From the pictures that were given to me the worst tires by far were on the most experienced speedway drivers car. He probably has around 1000 more laps on 1.5 mile tracks and bigger than any other driver. The speed that were run this last race at TMS were around the same speeds that were run at the very first ROMCO race at TMS with Hoosiers. There wasn't a lick of trouble out of the Hoosiers. Alot of the guys are running the same setup that they ran on the Hoosier. As far as a "bad batch?" I sure hope not. ROMCO and the drivers cant afford for Day Motorsports to produce a bad batch of tires.

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